Recent Developments in Orientation Contrast Microscopy

Abstract

Automated mapping of crystallographic orientations based on the diffraction of electrons has been widely employed to characterize the microstructure of crystalline materials. The most commonly used technique in this field is Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD), which is a scanning electron microscopy based technique. Modern EBSD owes its popularity to the fact that it offers a reasonable balance between spatial resolution (30–50 nm) and field width (~mm2). This article highlights a number of new developments and applications of orientation contrast microscopy including (1) 3D-EBSD, (2) Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction (TKD) and (3) ACOM-TEM (Automatic Crystal Orientation Mapping in the TEM)